Scar Tissue PART I
by Frances Bentley Ford
Summary: Everything I believed in was I was told that I created. there's certain important things that make me feel in my bones that this is untrue. But, I slowly let go of my confidence in myself as I'm hospitalized, I think. sometimes I'm lucid. Important people in my life I then don't know if their real. years later in a confession letter in court to a murder? Or revenge is told.


I walked into the seventy-six police precinct in NYC. I was the new Captain, or Commanding Officer, in the Eastern District, and it was my first day in my official capacity. It took me twelve years to become captain, and that was with help.

I intentionally stayed as a primary or first grade detective, having been the first position or two that I really earned. My badge was gold to others, but to me it was a dark crimson red, almost a dark purple. It was waterboarded in blood. Many people call it a shield. I find that ironic.What it represents is so much more symbolic!Of course, you can't possibly understand what I mean yet.

Ultimately though, I wear it to remind me what it means to me. What it cost me. I wear it as a badge to honor my last word of honor.

COURT OF APPEALS

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

VS.

Francis Bentley Ford

I became detective-inspector first, at third grade detective. Not by my doing, but nonetheless it was mine for the taking because I hadn't a clue that there were strings attached to me. But, when I learned the truth, that's when I really excelled at my job and used every tool I had been taught, whether through studies, or massive experience and tragedy, and attacked every homicide scene where the victims were clearly dead. I treated it as if I had a chance to save their life by solving the crime. A couple of years later, after I was moved to another precinct with a different last name that I had chosen because I didn't want to let my name interfere with my career, I showed my brilliant abilities and was quickly bumped up to primary, first grade detective.

I was making a great salary. I stayed their content for a while. I was even going to retire there. But, then my world and life were destroyed. Maybe I'm part to blame in some of this for falling in love and starting a family. Maybe because I always had a rule, in which my family comes first before anything else. I wasn't one of those cops who constantly left their minds at the crime or murder scene when they returned home. I always came home to make time for my family. I didn't know though, that I was making, what was the greatest weakness, so publicly aware.

At first, I received cryptic death threats, but I never anticipated that it all resulted in planting a seed, or the seed. It was distorting my perception at work and my thinking, which was my real advantage. I then lost my edge, and I lost something special. Love had consumed me and replaced my primal instincts with emotions so profound with feelings towards my family's happiness. My senses were all dull. I was weak, but worse I was vulnerable.

Then one day, I woke up not knowing that when I was brushing my teeth next to my wife, it would be the last time she would laugh at me and tell me I was so gross because of the gurgling noise I always made. I would try to retort in a comeback, but she would quickly interrupt, before I lit the fuse to the cannon, and would tell me every time and casually say she knew I was going to tell her something about the way she spit her toothpaste. I was never able to tell that come back with the humor I intended unfortunately, but she was right and knew I was going to say it the whole time, anyway.

A switch was turned off in my brain. I was like a bottle cork floating in the middle of a great sea with nothing in sight around it. I was lost. What's worse I would soon learn I had lost my shadow. My past had caught up to me. My past, that's right. The landmark of Hell! I forgot who the interior decorators were and who was the narrator of my life. It was all hidden in plain sight the whole time. I just wasn't looking because I let love distract me from the hate that was always present. Everything I set up was in a position of being attacked.

The sky in my world was unzipped by a shooting star that opened it up. That time I had called happiness and love, looking back it was all too brief like a great dash of light captured for a marvelous moment shooting across the skies. But, you realize it was so fast you couldn't even tell someone to look at it, and then a stranger comes along one night and zips up that opening left by the star that shot through your world, your skies, and closes it!

I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't have the strength, nor did I have a reason. I would stay there waiting for my body to expire, so my soul can escape. I wasn't afraid of anything. I learned that hell had no limits and I was residing in it all my life. I feared nothing of this world. Everything had been done to me, anyway. I embraced death because I knew to leave this devilish existence may be a place without suffering.

Here, I was living a bleak existence of crying every time I woke up because I was still here. So, I did what I had to do. I took my gun and clamped down on the cold barrel. I knew exactly what angle to squeeze to end all of my suffering. I can't articulate or express the words what the moment was like to justify its clarity.

All the rage and hate I had towards myself, and all the hosts along the way of this Hell where bats thrived in, the hosts that rented space from the architect that was responsible for building and creating this world, for killing the person that held my heart in her hands, especially, had finally consumed me!

My heart was the only thing that was able to escape this darkness because it was hers for safe keeping, and so it died with her.

My child, the extension of our love, a girl that would remind me every time I looked at her, of the women I was in love with, was killed too. Hailey was an echo of the love shared between her mother and I, and our love produced the purest form of an ultimate love between two hearts intertwined. The finished product was a daughter that looked like her mother but had her father's expressions and preferred the same side of the toilet paper. Hailey had seventeen different laughs. I only heard her cry four different ways, including her first cry entering this world, but that night she cried a fifth way I've never heard before. The last way she cried while exiting the same world she had entered, but it was different because memories and love were attached to the final cry!

All my love and passion were replaced with rage and extreme hate. When you take away everything from a woman or man, anything they care about in their life; hope, love, family, meaning, purpose, then they become primitive and I from then on, acted out of natural instinct. Like a barbaric savage, only some are very intelligent and prepare for the blood lust.

Yes, that dayI held the gun in my mouth and applied pressure to the trigger and my final thought was a chess board. I told you I can't explain it, but it all then just made sense to me. My mind was the only thing that was still intact. Barely, but it was still there. My feelings and emotions were absolutely flatlined. No paddles to my body could bring back empathy or compassion ever again. But, I had the chess board. Life! Psychological warfare is what it really was not just a game.

My mind then resorted to a criminal mastermind as if the paddles shocked a rhythm to my flatlined pulse. The beeping had stopped. The loud crying had silenced and now I was left with extreme focus.

I returned to work two weeks after the tragedy happened and after convincing everyone, including the doctor that I was fine, I asked to take the lieutenants test. Many people were shocked, and they felt like they were losing a great detective too. There was no way anyone thought I was in the right frame of mind to return two weeks later and take a test for promotion. It was also proof that I had gone mad. It meant I was striving for the offices of rank and position, then the streets that I had thrived in and mastered. But, to be honest, I haven't at the time grieved at all, or would until my only purpose was completed in life.

Before I knew it, I was a lieutenant. I had two to five years before I could become a Captain. All that time was like a foggy phase at work. I was on auto-response. I was so good at my job that my mind didn't have to be where my feet were all the time. Only when needed. I worked tons of overtime because I no longer had a home to go to at the end of shifts. I used endless amounts of resources for the only reason why I didn't squeeze the trigger that day. I used all the time and years to plan my revenge.

The hardest part for me was controlling my rage and never taking off my mask.

Imagine standing next to the man that destroyed your family's lives. Having killed them and having to stand next to him. I knew moments like that would come to light frequently. But, I thought of the chess board. He would talk to me and I had to smell his stale coffee breath with a strong hint of cigarettes. I often wondered if he dipped his fingers in an ashtray before applying them to his neck and wrists.

In my whole career as a cop, I've learned many things, but it's the small details that stick with me. Our coffee cups for example. Sometimes we're so busy or not busy, making us feel tired that were constantly drinking coffee and never take the time to properly clean the mug after we're done. Just a rinse, right? But, no. So, many mugs had coffee ring stains on the inside. His, it was spotless and smelled like Gin Rye!

Maybe you're wondering if I had nothing to lose, why not put a hole in his head and end it? Or maybe you're not thinking that because you're not out of your mind like I've been accused of being. I couldn't do it. There were a few reasons. You would have to know the things that led up to this point, first. And this point isn't where the story currently is. This point is strategically planning for years my revenge. That was my only purpose. Anyone that tried to get close to me, I assumed was a threat to my operation.

This is a simple story, or a case if you listen to me. Please don't overthink it! This is in a sense a goodbye. By the time you read this, I will have finally escaped this hell and found peace. If I'm lucky, a place where I'm with my wife and daughter. I wish I could say that I mean it when I say I'm sorry, but I'm just scar tissue. My scabs were picked with each tragic event in my life and bled until finally, they were picked so much that my wounds turned into this, scar tissue. Note, this is my confession, with a goodbye letter sprinkled throughout it. Most importantly it's for you! Check mate!

My current official position made me responsible for my squad, the detectives in in it, and the finest police officers to protect this city. I was only thirty-four years old. I was told by my father who was a high-ranking police official, but now retired, that the worst thing for a man is for him to lose his shadow. That for some people, time will always catch up. At the time I didn't know what that meant. It was a meaning you would only understand if you had fallen into the great abyss. It took me until that day when I tripped and fell. For some people the worst interpretation of the meaning is experiencing life's valleys and peaks.

I walked in and I looked at the bulletin board of the highest-ranking command, and saw they placed my picture towards the top already. I thought it was odd. I noticed the sergeant below me was a twenty-year-old year-old male wearing plainclothes. It was clearly a joke at the sergeant's expense. I took it down before he saw it. The officers were all staring at me and were chatting amongst themselves. I didn't know who put the picture there, but I didn't share the humor. I continued towards my office. I walked by Katrina, a talented primary detective.

"Second day CO, how you liking It? Stupid question, sorry. Don't worry we'll figure this all out." She seemed genuinely concerned.

"I know you will. I have the most faith in you and, I can't believe I'm saying this, but Mercury to." Mercury was a first-grade homicide detective as well. Just as good, but a douche.

"Just get situated. Let us do the heavy lifting now. You've been through so much in the last year and a half. This is the city's worst event, so we'll do the best for you!" She walked away, and I believed her. Fortunately, I did my best too, and I would continue to.

So, the day finally came where I found my peace. I accomplished the purpose of my life. The event happened on the day which was the day of reckoning. The day of revenge. The question you're going to ask me is was it worth it, do I finally feel better like justice has been done? I'll let you judge that.

The following is my confession. I wanted this read for you before you found out what I'm charged with, so you wouldn't judge me. So, you can really listen to me without knowing anything that's important to this. I wrote it down because I have a knack for remembering a lot of events in my life. Landmarks in my mind! Some of the conversations with less important people aren't exactly as told, but captured in the way they spoke to me.

Every name is real to prove the validity of this testimony. It's written down this way to allow me to make this difficult project easier. These events are hard for me to re-live. At times you may be confused, don't worry I've re-read this and made sure I didn't leave any loose ends. Things that may have seem meaningless in the very beginning, will play a role into my story. It's all right here written in plain sight. Don't overthink it!

He keeps pushing me. I feel like I have no strength left then he asks me if I'm tired. I express how exhausted I am. He then pulls out the thing I can't stand the most. It scares me, but at my age its intriguing.

I'm not able to comprehend what's really going on. He tells me how it's so powerful and to make it part of me, would make me special. I couldn't stand it. It didn't feel right.

The first time he made me hold it, I quickly let go. He looked at me as if I insulted him. I thought then that I probably made him feel like something so important to him, made me scared. So, I went along with it. He tells me to do it and we'll stop for the day. I was too young, so I was clumsy. After I did it, and after I would always do it, he always asked me a series of questions pushing me and challenging my limits. He pushed me to the brink and what I found out, was my brinks limits were further than I thought. My limits were limitless, and it made me feel special. This was his intention. I thought what he was teaching me must have been working.

So, instead of riding bikes like other kids at my age and riding them feeling so liberated by not having any structure of the summer days. No camp to attend to then. When you were a boy then, you would wake up with a whole day of doing whatever you wanted to. Maybe you were exploring stuff in the woods near a fascinating waterfall, but really you were discovering yourself and childhood, and exploring forts in woods, making tree houses, but not me. I didn't do any of those things. I didn't have the escape kids my age did.

I spent my time with him. He was my babysitter and he was highly trusted, it seemed, by my father. So, I assumed my father approved of what was going on and what he said I was learning. Little did I know the seed was planted and wouldn't bloom for a long time.

He had so much anger in him I could feel it. I became intrigued with him by the things he would tell me, well, he would be talking more to himself, I just happen to be there I would realize. I researched him. I learned the man he was. Things began to make sense. At my age I was incapable of comprehending the realistic truth. My brain was still developing. Things were more of an adventure or fantasy and escape to me. Perhaps it was his story that enchanted me, or what I was being taught, but I never connected the dots until later.

I was homeschooled for all of my childhood. My father was very stern and didn't want me going to school. He received a lot of threats, so he became overly paranoid and protective. I'm trying to remain as objective as I can. My mother had a heart problem from giving labor to me, so she couldn't work, and would be at home during the days too. She would get dizzy spells and I would find her often on the floor.

At first it was the scariest feeling, actually the first four times her heart made my heart stop. She then explained to me that she had a big heart, and because she loved so much she would always day dream of the best fantasy and fall asleep occasionally. As i grew older the story would be revised to eventually she had a weak heart and needed a new one. The one she had at that time, had a clock on it counting down its expiration date. That has always been my most important goal in life. I wanted to save her. She was on a list. But, she wasn't officially on a list until I didn't find her name and learned she kept it a secret from my father too.

"Jesus woman, what were you thinking? Well? Ok, fine. I'll tell ya. You weren't thinking! This will be fixed at once. I will not lose the one person I love in my life! Do you hear me?" I heard my father through my thin walls say to my mom. He then cried in the long moment it took her to answer.

"I love you too, dear. You know you have to be strong, remember?" That was the last I heard before falling asleep.

I asked her later on, why she would not let the doctor put her on a donor's heart? I was crushed by her answer.

"Look at me my beautiful son, I don't want a stranger's heart attached to my soul! My heart that I have may be a lemon, but its filled with so much love for you. So much love that the juice would never taste like the lemonade I make! Everything is instilled in my heart. To take it out and replace it, I can't live with the thought!" I didn't know the great love she knew then, but when I did know what she was talking about, I understood her point. But, life is tricky like that, by the time you find out the truth about life, time will have already moved on. The two greatest battles of one's existence, life and time. A constant battle that time always won throughout life, and especially by the end of your life.

I was homeschooled by my neighbor, a retired teacher. He taught me all my studies. My mother thought highly of him, so I knew he must have been a good man. Mr. Wells. Boy, did he have a bottomless well of meticulousness. Very calculating.

He had a son a few years older than me that I befriended. He first came to our house to tell his father he needed a ride to the comic book store. His father told him never to interrupt his work again, but his son said that he had broken his promise. Mr. Wells was supposed to bring him yesterday I learned. So, I asked if we can go, and he took off his glasses and rubbed the corners of his eyes, but finally resigned maybe realizing he was over matched.

The three of us went to what anyone else would say was just a comic book store, but for me it was a whole new world I was entering, and about to inhabit. The store was called Brave Traveler Comics. That's where my first friend talked to me. He asked what my favorite comic was, and I saw his face resort into a look of utter bitterness, like he just ate the sourest candy ever. He knew by the look in my eyes what I was thinking and what I was about to say. He then said to me he couldn't believe I've never read a comic book before, and then asked Mr. Wells the date. After being told, he looked at me and told me that the date was a special day, the day I discovered a whole new world!

"Today, well today is the day you are born! The day you've become alive! You haven't lived if you've never read one of Alan Moore's comics. I only have enough money to buy a certain amount ok? I washed and mowed a shit ton of cars last summer, so let's see what will be the makeup of your DNA!" He then started picking up tons of comics. I was lost in the array of the covers and illustrations. I saw one cover that just spoke to me. The man looked so intriguing and mysterious, yet simple. But, it was the symbol that made me notice him. A white skull. I opened the comic up and I was lost. I was consumed. Now, I imagine how life was, and everyone were moving around me in fast forward, while I was perfectly still, hanging on each unique word, forming the snappiest and wittiest dialogue that was so brutally cool and not trying to be edgy at all. It was a break from novels that I had read and was like traveling to outer space and learning the extraterrestrial material that was read. From the covers that immediately made me open the thirty-page comic or the glossy pages, that even had a divine smell, contained pure explosions of all kinds of colors! And there were even frames sequencing the events. But, loved this character with the skull. I wanted to-- and then my friend invaded the moment I was having.

"Great choice! The Punisher, so now that I know I kind of have a feel for you, I'll show you the rest of the comic series. That's the first issue by the artist." Then his father stepped in and crouched next to me looking at me. He showed me something that I'll never forget. It changed my life that day. Twenty-four comics were bought but only one was the one I was reading. It wasn't a world I walked into, when I came into the store, it was a universe. The comic was my world! I left it in total awe.

On the ride back, I was explained by Wells son how lucky I was because I was about to embark on the best journey of my life. I had never read Alan Moore's work of comics such as The Joke, having to do with Batman and Jokers relationship and the great artist, Frank Miller who gave Batman his balls back. There were so many comics. He bought Watchmen for me, Sandcastle, V for Vendetta, and tons more. But, it was only the man with the skull I wanted to read about, and then read again and again. Eventually I was given every comic about him!

I had over fifty comic books of the best the store carried, and it was just scratching the surface, he said. Little did I know it was all about to bite me in the butt.

That night I started the one that intrigued me the most. I didn't sleep all night and my father opened my door to wake me up, but found me with all the comics around me, and me reading the last comic that was bought at the store under my table lamp. He was angry.

He took all the comics and threw them out. My father told me no more comics were allowed again! It was like he took my whole world away that I discovered a day before and lived in for the next day and had thrived in. It defined me and gave me meaning. He took it all away.

That day I didn't pay attention to what Mr. Wells taught me. He finally asked me what was wrong, and I told him what my father did. My mother was in the room and I saw him Iook at her before answering me. It's weird what the memory retains. That look stuck with me until I finally understood what in that moment it all meant.

He told me that he would let me read them during breaks with him. He told me he had all the issues. I said of course you do! My mom smiled, I saw it from the corner of her face as she washed her hands. Again, I saw his eyes lingering on her. I smiled to. I guess my heart was ahead of my mind. But life's greatest journey is sixteen inches, from your heart to your head.

Mr. Wells was a widower. His wife had died along with his kid. She died in a hit and run. I asked him how he felt, another fork fell, and he left for the moment while he was so clearly detailing it, but it was like he was somewhere else, there, somewhere with them, perhaps. He said he would find the person and make them beg for him to kill them. He said he was left with nothing in his life but revenge! I read in the Bible something about that, so I knew what he was referring to. My Mom dropped a plate in the kitchen, but I didn't hear it. I was still processing Wells words, but I saw him break from where ever he was and return. It was like my mom told him enough when the plate dropped and shattered.

Two weeks later Mr. Wells and my father were in the driveway talking about my school progress. They whispered a lot. I tried to listen. I heard Mr. Wells tell my father that the commute to work must be a hassle. I wondered why they were talking about work.

Then my father opened the garage. He never opened it! I was on the side of the house and heard my father ask Mr. Wells if he could fix it. I thought my father was referring to me. Maybe I was failing in my studies, but then I saw them staring at something. I looked and saw a dent on my father's car, but it was the way my father asked about fixing something. I guess I never noticed the dent before because he always left early and came home late "due to the job", he would put it.

Mr. Wells bent down and put his hand on it as if he could feel something or someone. It was odd. My father didn't seem to think so, but I knew Mr. Wells more than he did. Wells then put his head down. I realized in that moment even then, that my father had hit his wife and kid. His whole life and love was taken away and what was left was an imprint of a dent. What I didn't know was what Mr. Wells said next.

"Sure. I'll let you drive my car for two weeks max, then when your car will seem brand new! How's that sound?" My father nodded his head and shook his hand ,and Mr. Wells smiled with him. A smile they both shared, but a smile that was expressed for two entirely different reasons.

When Monday came so did Mr. Wells. Again, he asked me what was wrong. He asked if there was something on my mind. So, being that it ate me up all weekend I asked him.

"I don't get it! If my father hit your wife and daughter, why would you help fix his car? He should be punished!" He looked at me for a moment as if we were equals for the first time. It wasn't teacher looking down at a student, but for a fleeting moment he let me see him. He had a hint of a smile. His eyes though, were like a lava lamp of wisdom.

"I won't ever lie to you. Your father is a very bad man. He killed them. I thought it was an accident at the time, but I investigated it. After, I realized I still had something to live for, I knew your father had to answer for what he had done. For what he had taken from me! I found out it wasn't an accident as much as it was carelessness. I don't want to say anymore, but this. You don't need my help teaching you. You're highly intelligent. Why?" He asked me.

"But, what does that mean?" He then sighed and said told me back to studying. I heard a fork drop and realized my mother was in kitchen the whole time.

While I was reading a comic book Mr. Wells gave to me, my mother came in. I tried hiding it. She told me not to bother, she was the one that told him I had finished the last issue. I was surprised. I still don't know how she knew what I was reading and that I had finished it. My mom was the most intelligent and intriguing person I met in my life. Mr. Wells wasn't intriguing. He was exactly what you thought. He didn't hide it. I found out how much of a genius he was, but he had one weakness, and that one thing prevented him from getting what he wanted.

My Mom taught me that night how to play a game. She said I must treat life just like the game. If I mastered it I would always remain two steps ahead of everyone, well at least two steps ahead. As she continued to take my queen I increasingly became frustrated. I kept saying I stunk at the game. She said it's not about that. She taught me how important each move is, and the difference between the pieces. She showed me so many ways to protect my king. With each move she taught me something. Like the man in the garage, she connected a move with a situation to build something inside of me. Did you know that you can be taught instincts? I played defense for a few years until I finally mastered it. I learned every possible way to prevent an attack. Every which way in life to prepare for such a situation.

Unfortunately, she never said who the person was, or I would have been better prepared and not disarmed by my instincts, but in hindsight, what she taught me was meant for something more.

She came in one night and asked if I was ready for our first game? All along I thought we were playing. She told me she was teaching me, preparing me for the first time I played. She said her one goal was to put me in check mate, so I knew her approach was offense. I thought knowing everything about defense made me capable of defending against whatever offense was set my way to attack me. I ended up learning everything about offense. I had my pieces set and ready for all attacks. I knew all the scenarios of questions shed ask me. I had mastered my defense, so I knew she couldn't get through, in a couple of moves she had me compromised in check mate. Her offense was like an art. I begged her to teach me it because I had to learn it! I felt like I was half the player. I spent two years playing and I didn't know how to play.

TO BE CONTINUED...


End file.
